


A Posy of Violets

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Better to Face the Bullets 'verse [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9632915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: The initial sparks of romance between Nurse Lind and Ms. Wock.





	

The first time she walked into Firefly Hill, she found it difficult to keep the cool and cavalier air gathered about her. It was that blonde’s fault.

The desk nurse was all blue eyes and upswept blonde hair, lovely and statuesque. She drew the eye. She drew _Jasper’s_ eye, at least, and Jasper wasn’t looking for that sort of trouble. She was here for a client - a reasonably quick visit, she anticipated. Flirtation was the last thing on her mind.

And yet.

She found herself stopping at the desk despite having visited the hospital on a handful of previous occasions. “The east ward would be…?”

Neither looking up nor lifting her elbow from the desk, the blonde nurse tilted a hand to point.

Jasper made a valiant effort to come up with something to keep the nurse talking, but her quick wit and tongue failed her. After a moment of awkward silence, she turned right and headed down the long corridor. The walk provided her with time to reflect on her failure to be as charming and flirtatious as she’d intended. Or to get more than a half dozen words out of her mouth.

The appointment with her new client having gone rather successfully, Jasper’s confidence had renewed itself. On her way out, she once more had the length of the corridor to make decisions on how she might introduce herself, how best to obtain the desk nurse’s name, how to find out whether similar predilections were present there. Keeping it simple seemed the wisest option, what with the shape of her first attempt. The only question was whether she wanted to.

It took only a glance up from the nurse, at last meeting those blue-gray eyes, for her to decide. Oh, _yes._ She wanted.

She walked up to the desk with a practiced and conscious lack of care. Reaching into the front of her coat, she slipped a card from her breast pocket.

“Jasper Wock the Second, solicitor,” she said as she offered the card, holding the nurse’s gaze as she held it between two fingers. “If you’re ever in need of legal advice.”

The nurse tilted her head, giving a carefully appraising look before taking the card. “Mallory Lind,” she responded with a grin, “and I’m not certain you specialize in the sort of trouble I might get into.”

Jasper leaned a little more heavily against the desk, a sharp and confident smile blooming across her face. “I wouldn’t bet on that.”

~o~ ~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Mal had rolled her chair over to the filing cabinet to drop a few folders back into their respective places, and she didn’t see the other woman walk in. She heard the door open and shoes click across the tile, and when she turned to push herself back to her spot at the desk, there Jasper stood. 

Jasper leaned with her arms on the desk, a saucy look on her face and a perfect, white daisy held out in her hand.

“What is this?” Mal asked as she took it, smiling.

“Why, a flower.”

Though Mal responded with a sarcastic look, her smile stuck. “Yes. I can see that.”

Suddenly a tad more serious, Jasper asked, “Has no one ever given you a flower before?”

“Not often…” Mal admitted.

“That’s a crying shame,” Jasper said, leaning closer over the desk.

Mal held the flower near her nose. It smelled green, like summer and freshly cut grass. “Where on earth have you gotten a daisy in the middle of winter?”

“It’s a hobby. I’ve been fine-tuning my hothouse for years.” Jasper smirked, the gesture that came with it an elegant shrug if ever there was one. “Of course, now it doesn’t look quite so pretty. Not up next to you.”

Mal actually felt a faint flush color her cheeks. How long had it been since someone made her blush? She slipped the daisy’s stem through the pin of her lapel watch, not quite knowing how to respond. The way Jasper winked at her before leaving the desk to head down to the east ward created a warm buzz in her belly.

“You don’t go catting around, do you?” she asked when Jasper returned, catching her by surprise. It was just a little gratifying to see the look on her face.

Jasper put her arms on the desk again, leaning low and answering quietly. “Not when I have a steady girl.”

“Hmm,” Mal hummed as she sat back in her chair. She crossed her arms, considering. “I won’t be one of some harem. And you have the harem look about you.”

“No, you don’t seem the type to be happy as one of many.” Jasper’s smile softened a bit. She pushed herself upright, stepping slowly backward toward the doors. “I suppose I’ll simply have to cut the rest loose, won’t I?”

Mal watched as Jasper gave something of a theatrical little spin as she left the hospital. It unsettled her a bit, how much she wanted this odd, _ridiculous_ woman. The burnt child feared the fire, and all. She wasn’t quite certain how ready she was to jump into someone else’s arms.

She couldn’t keep her hands off the daisy on her apron strap. She found herself turning her head to catch its scent, her fingers stroking its short stem. More than one of the other nurses remarked upon the flower, and she dodged insinuations about admirers over the rest of the day.

Once home, Mal carefully freed the daisy from her watch pin and laid it on her dresser before going to change into her nightclothes. It had been such a long time since someone showed interest. Longer still since she’d felt interest in return. And Ms. Wock was absolutely lovely. Mal shivered as she dropped her nightgown over her head, imagining her hands in that white-blonde hair. It looked as though it might feel like silk between her fingers. 

She inhaled the fresh smell now only just clinging to the flower once more before fishing a sheet of tissue paper from the bottom drawer. Folding the paper in half, she nestled the daisy carefully inside so that its face shined upward, and placed it in the middle of a heavy book to press.

The next time Jasper came around, she decided. Next time.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~ ~o~

More than a month and a half passed before she darkened the hospital door. Mal had very nearly given up on seeing her again. She did her best not to feel irritated or jilted. After all, she’d given Jasper what amounted to her only ground rule, and if Jasper couldn’t do that much, well then.

Then there she was, standing in the open door and the spring sunshine.

“Captain Gold is no longer at this hospital,” Mal said. She looked up through her eyelashes, away from her filing and to the tall, lanky woman who’d just come legging into the foyer with a hand held behind her back.

“I’m aware,” Jasper said with a bright smile. 

She walked up to the desk, leaning a cocked hip against the edge of it. Looking over her shoulder at Mal, she pulled from behind her a thick, lush posy of violets tied up just beneath their blooms with a purple ribbon.

“You should get more flowers,” Jasper declared, turning to hold them over to Mal’s side of the desk.

“I should get more of a good many things,” Mal replied. She took the little bouquet, burying her nose in the delicate flowers for a moment. “Perhaps I should go after them myself, rather than waiting. Waiting for weeks,” she said pointedly.

“Oh my, has it been so long?” Jasper said, but she seemed to have the decency to look abashed for her timing. “You know, I did what you said. I don’t have a single girl on a string.”

“Not a single one?”

“Well… I have one string that’s dangling in hopes of a girl…”

Mal made a soft scoffing sound, but she couldn’t help the grin that set in on her lips.

Jasper lay her hands flat on the desk, sliding them outward as she leaned in. “Leave with me, Mallory.”

“Leave with you?” Mal asked, laughing in disbelief. “Do you mean _now?”_

“We’ll go into London, have lunch, walk around the shops. Get to know one another better.” She beamed, broad and a shade voracious, in stark contrast with the way her voice softened afterward. “Come with me.”

Something about her made Mal’s heart thump harder. She _wanted_ to go. “I’d have to see if someone would take my shift.”

Jasper’s eyes positively glittered. “Then see.”

Even as Mal pushed herself away from the edge of the desk, rolling across to the telephone to put in a call, she could hardly believe she was doing it.

“Hello?” she said after it had connected. She flicked a look over at Jasper, who sank down until her chin rested on her arms, eyes hooded and smile entirely too pleased. Mal licked her lips. “Urse, I need a favor.”

**Author's Note:**

> (First meeting takes place during the events of ch 102. Second meeting, during ch 118. Third meeting is set after Rummond’s release, a short time after the eventual end of the main fic.)


End file.
